Lesson Learned
by MintyPlant
Summary: Toki could point to the exact moment when he stopped caring.


Right before and in the aftermath of the attack on Mordhaus, Toki had made one big mistake, and that was thinking that any member of Dethklok cared about him. It had seemed like it, with Skwisgaar and Nathan and even Pickles criticizing his drinking, and when all of them were mourning the manager in the weeks after, together. He'd clung to those moments.

But that had been the last time anyone had acted like they cared.

His conscience fought him on that, of course. It pointed out that they'd had their own worries — trying to rebuild Mordhaus and keep the band afloat and fight the record label's renegotiation schemes. And Pickles had that scare about dying, and something was going on with Skwisgaar, though he wouldn't tell Toki what. Nathan and Murderface had their own problems, too. Murderface was busy with his Christmas special, and Nathan ... who knew what was up with Nathan? The frontman had been more serious lately, more thoughtful, less up for mayhem and reckless fun than he had been before the attacks.

But then, his conscience had also told him that his parents only wanted what was best for him as they beat imagined defiance out of him. His conscience had tricked him into forgiving his father, and he still wasn't sure if slipping and dropping the man to drown had been an accident. He thought it was, he would have sworn to that in the moments after it happened, but his conscience kept nagging at him that maybe he'd meant to do it, and he felt guiltier every time he remembered.

He could point to the exact moment when he stopped giving a damn. He was kneeling next to Dr. Rockzo in his bathroom, helping him again, even after he'd sworn him off, because his conscience told him to. The clown had no one else, it told him, he needed a friend as badly as Toki did. Worse, maybe.

"Dr. Rockzo?" he said, worried despite himself. The clown looked bad, almost as bad as he had the last time Toki helped him get sober, though mall Santa was a step up from prostitution.

"Oh, Dr. Rockzo not feelin' so good," the clown managed to get out. "Oh, give me some Christmas spirit in here!"

Toki wanted to. Dr. Rockzo was his friend — maybe his only friend left, since Skwisgaar and the others had started ignoring him — and you were supposed to help your friends. But the Al-Anon people had been firm, and with misgivings, he followed the script they'd taught him. "For the records, Dr. Rockzo, I can'ts gets you drugs, thats would be enables you. But I loves you, even though you ams powerless."

He waited for Dr. Rockzo to turn on him, too, even as his conscience told him he was doing the right thing, so when Rockzo slung an arm around him in a shaky hug, and said, "R-R-Rockzo l-loves you too, baby," Toki felt a brief moment of joy. His friend understood. There was someone who still cared about him after all. For once in his life, finally, something was going how it was supposed to. He let his guard down and grinned happily.

And then Rockzo shoved his head under the water. Toki couldn't make out what Rockzo was screaming. All he could do was try to fight his way to the surface, try to breathe, and flail until the arms holding him under went slack. All he could do was feel his heart go cold as Rockzo destroyed his trust yet again. Dr. Rockzo didn't care about Toki. He just wanted drugs.

That's when the rest of Dethklok came in, as he was gasping for breath and trying to ignore childhood memories the now-unconscious clown had brought up, and not one of them had even asked why he was soaking wet and shaken up. They'd just dragged him off to the mall with his mother, who he hadn't ever wanted at Mordhaus in the first place, who he still expected to slap him at any moment, even after years away from Norway.

It was on the ride to the mall that Toki told his conscience he wasn't listening to it anymore, when it tried to point out that they all hated their mothers too, that maybe they were distracted. That was bullshit, and he knew it. Even if they'd been distracted, how could they not have noticed? He'd have noticed.

That stupid little voice in the back of his head had done nothing but cause trouble for him from the day he was born, and he wasn't listening to it any more. Maybe listening was what had made everything go wrong in the first place.

And it was when he'd gone to retrieve everyone's presents for the secret Santa — the one no one else had wanted to do, even though they knew how important it was to him — and found them all gone, stolen by Rockzo, that he decided he was done with caring about anyone, too. Even himself.

* * *

**Note with Dethrisiduals/Fatherklok Spoilers: **I've been trying to figure out why Toki didn't seem to care about being kicked out of the band in Dethrisiduals or about Skwisgaar leaving in Fatherklok, when last season he would have panicked at either, and this is what I came up with. Something about that smile on his face right before Rockzo pushed his head under the water stuck with me. :/ It started as a short little drabble and kind of ... grew into this angsty one-shot not-really-a-story. Sorry.

**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to Small and Blacha, of course.


End file.
